Spiritual Dryness Revisited

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In 2013, I wrote a 4^th Day Letter about spiritual dryness. It is something that at one time or another most Christians experience. After reflecting upon the isolation caused by the pandemic, the inability to attend church, and after recent discussions with several Christians currently going through a time of spiritual dryness, I felt called to revisit this topic. I invite you to read more….

This past week I heard about Jonathan Steingard, a member of the Christian rock band Hawk Nelson who announced on Instagram that he no longer believes in God.  Here is his quote:

“After growing up in a Christian home, being a pastor’s kid, playing and singing in a Christian band, and having the word ‘Christian’ in front of most of the things in my life – I am now finding that I no longer believe in God,” he wrote in his statement. “The last few words of that sentence were hard to write. I still find myself wanting to soften that statement by wording it differently or less specifically – but it wouldn’t be as true.”

Will this young singer’s current feeling towards God remain or is he wandering in a spiritual desert? I don’t know. We all seem to experience periods where we feel quite distant from God. I have. Have you?  Sometimes spiritual dryness lasts for days, other times it lingers for month, and for some, it lasts years.

The term “dark night of the soul” is a term often used to describe a spiritual crisis in the journey toward union with God. Many very strong Christians, including Mother Teresa, have endured these dry spells of faith. This pandemic and these trying times are causing many Christians to encounter a dark night of the soul.

My protracted spiritual dry spell in 2013 was broken in a most unusual way. One night I looked up from my back porch and saw one of the clearest skies I have ever seen. The moon and every star illuminated the sky. One night later, to my disappointment, the sky was blackened by clouds. These stunningly different skies offered me a vital insight for my spiritual journey.

I realized that the same stars, moon, and planets were just as brilliant in the sky; but they were obscured by the clouds. It is the same way with God. Some days He seems so close and some days we can’t seem to find Him at all. The reality is, God is constant. God never moves. He never changes. Spiritual clouds sometimes block our view.

For reasons we might not understand, God paradoxically draws us into the desert to experience its dryness ultimately to draw us closer to Him.  Sometimes we need the wilderness to make us grow. Matthew 3:17 states: “And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The very next line, Matthew 4:1, states, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.”  Why does this happen? Only God knows.

Do you remember the movie “An American Tale”? In this animated adventure film Fievel Mousekewitz and his family, a family of mice, immigrate from Russia to the United States for freedom. However, Fievel gets lost and must find a way to reunite with his family. Fievel is washed overboard from the ship in a storm and his parents presume he has drowned; however, unknown to them, Fievel floats to America in a bottle. Tanya, Fievel’s sister, tells her gloomy parents she has a feeling that Fievel is still alive, but her parents insist that the feeling will eventually go away. At this point in the film, with Fievel and his sister miles apart and both looking up at the same bright moon in the night sky, they sing alternating verses of the song “Somewhere Out There”. Click to listen:

Fievel Sings

Somewhere out there,

Beneath the pale moonlight,

Someone’s thinking of me and loving me tonight.

Tanya Sings

Somewhere out there,

Someone’s saying a prayer,

That we’ll find one another in that big somewhere out there.

Permit me to apply those lyrics to the parable of the Prodigal Son. Can you picture the son a long way from home looking up at the moon while at the same time the father is looking at the same moon? They might sing this song this way:

The Son Sings

Somewhere out there,

Beneath the pale moonlight,

My Father is thinking of me and loving me tonight.

While the Father sings

Somewhere out there,

My son is saying a prayer,

that we’ll find one another in that big somewhere out there.

Great theologians have long speculated as to why we have these periods of dryness. I once read a sermon that said: “The final lesson that God teaches us when our prayer runs dry is that we must gradually learn to participate in the Cross of Christ. In times of dryness, we experience the thirst of Jesus on the Cross. If the Cross was Jesus’ way to the Father, then surely, we, the disciples of Jesus, cannot expect to travel the scenic route free of all pain and hardship. When we experience darkness in prayer or in the marketplace, we are being invited to identify with Jesus in his suffering and in his experience of feeling abandoned by the Father. Also, in the desert we are being invited and challenged to trust that our God will not abandon us but will come to rescue us and redeem us (see Exodus 16).”

We have all heard the quote: “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” During these periods when we seem removed from God, remember that although the clouds blocked my view, the moon and stars were still there. Likewise, God is always there even if we cannot see Him or hear His voice.  We must never lose hope, He is always longing for us to find our way back to Him in prayer. If you are experiencing a dry spell, I hope the Holy Spirit touched your heart through these words today.

Heavenly Father help me to embrace the times when you seem distant. It is during these times that you may truly be teaching me. I know you never leave me. Help me to grow in my love for you even during the dryness. Amen.

As always, I love to read your comments below as well as hear from you personally by clicking here.

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Brian Pusateri

Brian is a Christian author and speaker. Brian, a lifelong Catholic, felt his life was forever changed when God spoke to his heart while attending an eight day silent Christian retreat in November of 2011. Soon after that retreat Brian founded 4th Day Letters and Broken Door Ministries. With the God inspired message of mercy and unconditional love that was placed on his heart during that retreat, Brian has been impacting others all over the country and around the world with his weekly letters, his talks, and his all day Christian retreats. In June of 2014, Brian’s life was again impacted in a very dramatic way when his eyesight suddenly became permanently impaired. The initial diagnosis was Multiple Scleroses (MS) but in December of 2019 the diagnosis was corrected to MOG antibody disease, a rare neurological disease. This health challenge has only served to draw Brian closer to God and bolster the importance of this timely yet ageless message.

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